Lairedion on the Dutch state being sued over war crimes at Rawagede, West Java.
On Monday 8 September 2008 10 Indonesian survivors of Dutch post WWII violence have sued the Dutch State for the assassination of their family members during the First Police Action (Agresi Militer Belanda I) after WW II. They want financial compensation, explanations and recognition for their suffering, as announced by their lawyer Mr. Gerrit Jan Pulles.
According to Pulles it is for the first time Indonesian victims of the fighting of 1945-1949 hold the Dutch State responsible. Mr. Pulles acts on behalf of ten villagers from Rawagede, West Java. They survived the bloody attack of the Dutch Army on 9 December 1947. According to the Dutch Honorary Debts Foundation, 431 (almost all the male) villagers were slaughtered. According to the Dutch Indulgence Note from 1969 150 people were killed. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced they will study the matter.
Well into 2008, 63 years after Indonesian independence, the Dutch, due to their stubbornness, ignorance and patronizing behaviour, are being haunted again by their crimes in the aftermath of Soekarno’s declaration of 17-8-45 and they rightfully should. Only just being liberated themselves from the Germans the Dutch wanted to continue the situation as it was before WWII and re-occupy their former territories now being declared independent and bearing the name Republik Indonesia.
Rawagede is one of the most notorious events in the history of Indonesian struggle for independence against the Dutch. On 9 December 1947 Dutch forces raided the West Javanese village to look for weapons and Indonesian freedom fighter Lukas Kustario who often spent time in Rawagede. They didn’t find any weapons neither did they find Lukas.
Survivors of Rawagede remember (full version of documentary linked in footnotes).
Apparently dissatisfied by their lack of success the Dutch commander directed all males to be separated from the rest in order to execute all of them, despite the fact there were some young males of 11-12 years old among them. Indonesian leaders reported the mass killing to local UN officials. The UN made an inquiry and concluded the killings were “deliberate” and “ruthless” but failed to prosecute and to have the Dutch punished and sentenced for these obvious crimes against humanity and this is still the situation today!
Last month Pulles (of mixed Indo-Dutch blood like yours truly) visited Rawagede together with people from the “Yayasan Komite Utang Kehormatan Belanda (KUKB)”, including its chairman Jeffry Pondaag, to collect witness accounts and endorsements from survivors in order to hold the Dutch State responsible.
A protest outside Dutch embassy in Jakarta.
While financial compensation is sought after it must be noted that most survivors only want the Dutch State to take moral responsibility and offer official apologies to the Indonesian people. Furthermore they do not seek punishments for the people directly involved in the killings. One survivor just wants the Dutch not to forget what has happened.
At the same time more and more Dutch veterans, haunted by the crimes and horror they experienced, are supportive of the Rawagede survivors’ claim. It is very disappointing to see that of all the Dutch political parties only the left-wing Socialist Party support the claim while the conservative-liberal VVD on behalf of MP spokesman Hans van Baalen even denied Dutch crimes against humanity in Indonesia! 63 years of ignorance and subtle racism have been persistent obviously, a disease many Western nations still suffer from.
It is because of this the KUKB has been founded by Netherlands-based Indonesian Jeffy Pondaag in 2005. They demand the Dutch government:
The foundation is a non-subsidized independent foundation with branches in the Netherlands and Indonesia and would be happy to accept any donations. They look after the interests of civilian victims who suffered from violence and war crimes committed by Dutch military. Their website have more information on the Rawagede story and on the infamous Raymond Westerling who murdered thousands of innocent people in South Sulawesi.
Back in 2005 Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda, obviously speaking on behalf of the Indonesian people, made it clear Indonesia is not seeking apologies or compensation from the Dutch. This reaction came after then Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot (who is Jakarta-born) expressed regrets and morally accepted the de-facto independence of Indonesia on 17-8-45 while he was representing the Dutch government during the festivities of Independence Day on 17-8-2005. Bot’s remarks were widely criticized in the Dutch media for being insufficient and way too short of a full apology and recognition of 17-8-45.
Of course it is irrelevant if Indonesia is demanding apologies or compensation or not. It should come from the Dutch themselves but their stubbornness and ignorance are still hindering them anno 2008. The Netherlands have constantly refused to express a full apology and recognition but were always quick to raise their finger and lecture its former colony on alleged human rights violations during the Soeharto reign.
I’m fully supportive of the Rawagede villagers and any future similar cases, seeking for Dutch responsibility, recognition and financial compensation. Evidence is clear, witnesses and next of kin are still alive, we’re dealing with war crimes, gross violation of human rights and crimes against humanity and here lies an opportunity for the Dutch to finally deal with its own past by recognizing and helping those poor villagers.
Sources and links:
News article from Dutch daily “Parool” (Dutch) : Indonesiërs klagen Nederlandse staat aan
Website of KUKB (Dutch and Indonesian): Yayasan Komite Utang Kehormatan Belanda
1948 (English) Word document approx. 7.8 MB: Report of the Rawahgedeh observation team
Broadcast of Dutch news show Netwerk with topic on this story: Netwerk 8 September 2008 (witness accounts from survivors (Dutch-Indonesian-Sundanese). Streaming media, requires broadband internet access.
well thank you purba;)
i’m actually here to get indonesia back in dutch hands, so far i’ve already liberated a small piece of land outside bandung!!
hehehe, well i don’t know, it’s just that sometimes all the talk about colonialism makes me a bit tired, not that the dutch didn’t do very bad things here but it’s like what, 70 years now and the country is in shambles, i agree with purba when he talks about deforestation and how its all being bought up outside but the indonesian government doesn’t do jackshit about it, i mean come on, bob hassan? he didn’t become a billionaire by gardening and landscaping, and right now tni is chopping down trees in papua at recordspeed…
i love this country, wouldn’t be living here since ’96 if i didn’t, there are things that are better in holland there are things that are better over here…
right now i’m in malang, i was just feeding this paralyzed girl and she’s dying in front of my eyes, it’s breaking my heart. i went to tangeran and far away kampungs in bogor, working for handicapped kids two weeks ago, the government doesn’t do much if anything at all. tangeran is one of the worst places i’ve seen it’s just terrible, people there tell me that it used to be beautiful there, chilly in the morning and green but the government chopped down all the trees and now the place is either flooded or dried out, dengue fever everywhere, not to mention that it is controlled by the fpi, there aren’t even any hotels there anymore, not one! all closed down because of fpi demonstrations cause it might be possible that people have sex without marriage in hotels, wtf???
folks like me, like oigal, ross, et and all the others, bule’s that are making a life here, we are not complaining about things on this site because we look down on indonesians or indonesia, we don’t feel superior or anything, we complain because we honestly love this place and it’s people, because we’re frustrated with opening up newspapers and seeing page after page of bullshit, corruption, state violence, police violence, illegal deforestation and the list goes on. 12 years since that old massmurderer stepped down and still the same pack of wolves running this country into the ground…
sorry, i know i’m repeating myself sometimes but it does get a bit much sometimes…
heh!
holland sure isn’t what it used to be that’s for sure, after 10 years or so with the hardcore rightwing christians in power. they’ve closed down big parts of the amsterdam red light district, they’ve closed down most of the famous coffeeshops (i worked for years in one of those in rotterdam) , there’s camera’s on every damn street, there’s groups of pigs roaming the streets handing out tickets for the silliest offences, they’ve got these idotic city-guards parading around like they’re god’s gift to society…
holland with all it’s liberal drug laws had the lowest percentage of junkies in the world, they were coming from all over to study the way things were done there and these idiots are turning back the clock…
i go back there, i’m happy to see my family, my mates and after 2 weeks all i wanna do is go home to bandung…
bilderberg and the indonesian elite don’t really differ that much i think…
their yearly meeting is in spain this year i read, hope somebody bombs that building…
Dutch should be made to pay. Even today, they make big bluddy noise about HOW OTHER nations are “creating trouble” to their neighbors, such as China and Tibet – when it is non of their business, and forgetting that they had committed crimes that are thousand times worse in Indonesia. There is a video online even showing their Prime Minister Balkenande urging people to “be like VOC”. That’s enough to guess their mentalities.
Knowing the Dutch though, apart from being ignorant and extremely arrogant (check out the Tariq Ramadhan’s case), they are also world’s no 1. stingy population. Where do you think the saying “Let’s go Dutch” come from? It simply means you pay for your coffee, and I’ll pay for mine, even if two cups of coffee only costs 1.50EUR.
They have dehumanized Indonesians and Africans for years, and still hold many nations firmly under toes (Dutch antilles) and trying their best control Kepulauan Maluku. It isn’t so much about WAR, it is about how one race dehumanize (still is) another.
Make them pay and make them apologize.
Dutch warcrimes in Indonesia:
My name is Hans Porter, borne Dutch but emigrated to New Zealand where I also naturalised, so my ‘official’ Dutch link is gone. Emigrants learn an awful lot of sometimes awful things of the past when they live overseas, especially in countries which were ‘colonised’ by western powers. Although and compared to many other ‘new’ nations, NZ hasn’t fared too badly I thought. Maori of course took a beating and had their fare share of misery under the whiteman’s boot, Australia’s Aboriginal people had a far worse deal as I understand. Since I am an avoid reader and in particular about history, I am absolutely agast about the past of my own people! At school we were obviously drenched in WW2 German occupation anekdotes with the resulting scorn for a lot of things German, even today. Naturally we didn’t learn much about Indonesia and what was ‘accomplished’ in the name of the house of Orange and the government. Since I am Dutch myself, I obviously have a very good idea as to how my fellow people think and can manifest themselves. Therefor, I have no qualms about critisizing and holding to account ‘my own people’. personally I think that the Groningen court case is a debacle of the first degree. yes, i remember Westerling from the news papers, to make a long story short, this man was first sent to do the Dutch government’s dirty work and when he got too good at it and was caught out inconveniently by the media, he was accordingly hung out to dry. We, the ‘superior’ trend setting, higher educated and civilising european powers have behaved like scum of the earth, and we the Dutch, forever prosecuting the German ( no doubt they were a scourge to humanity) have to have a long and hard look at our steely, ignorant and hypocritical Dutch faces and come to terms with our own scandalous past behaviour.
I think we ought to apologise and pay compensation to the Indonesians, prosecute the corrupt mob which were in charge of Dutch foreign policy and hold them to account and don’t forget to expose our wonderful House of Orange. Although my dutch lineage cannot be ersased or ignored, I actually don’t feel that associated with it anymore as if reborne with another nationality. Ofcourse some reader will redicule this but I will take that in my stride.
learning and studying is a progessive discovery of our own dutch ignorance.
I do feel proud but also very ashamed of my Ducth ancestory and I apoligise to the poor Indonesians how have suffered under the hands of the dispicable Dutchman.
We the Dutch, can be arrogant, loud mouthed and quick to point the finger at another nation’s bad behaviour forgetting that they have been as much scum of the earth.
I am glad that some big hearted ex soldiers of the dutch army have stood up and put their hands up to say that we have been very bad indeed. You, I salute and hope that this will trigger a healing process.
Thank you
Every country that is in power over another or dominates a group of people will commit warcrimes or crimes against humanity. Just look at the USA right now, they had no business in Iraq, but conducted a war anyway, under false pretences and committed all kinds of war crimes. It is going to take a nuclear war and wipe out 99% of the people to have some peace. For the way it stands now the British along with the USA have the most and best weapons to kill and surpress any country that stands in their way. Besides that, war is good for business.
These are of little significance to me as Holland had been part of the Indies for 3/400 years and who would not fight hard for that.
The murder – yes, murder and massacre of Dutch civilian men, women and children by the Indonesians was just as bad if not far worse.
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Btw, library of Fakultas Ilmu Budaya in Universitas Indonesia’s open for Public from Monday to Saturday, i belive if you really Honestly want to know what happened then you can visit the library anytime you want.